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Power Automate
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Construction & Field Services · Modern Work & Automation
Drone line inspection from three days to overnight
A regional electric utility, United States. Monitoring power lines with camera-equipped drones produced large volumes of imagery that took three days to stitch and analyse, delaying every decision that depended on the result.
The situation
What the organization was dealing with
Monitoring power lines with camera-equipped drones produced large volumes of imagery that took three days to stitch and analyse, delaying every decision that depended on the result.
Utility asset inspection generates enormous volumes of imagery, and the value of that imagery decays quickly. An analysis that takes three days is describing a network that has already changed.
What was done
The work, and the part that was actually hard
More than 275 automation solutions were developed with Power Automate across the business, including automated image stitching and analysis for the drone inspection programme.
The drone example is the memorable one, but the more instructive figure is 275 automation solutions built across the business. That is not a project outcome; it is evidence of a capability that was established and then used repeatedly by people other than the original team.
Results
What was published
These are the figures exactly as reported in the source. Nothing has been rounded, extrapolated or restated.
Hours saved annually120,000
Automation solutions built275+
Image processing3 days → overnight
What changed
- Drone imagery stitched and analysed overnight instead of over three days
- More than 275 automation solutions delivered across divisions
- Around 120,000 hours saved each year
- Field inspection decisions made on current rather than stale information
Platforms involved
What each product was doing here
Power Platform
Power Apps
Purpose-built applications for processes no packaged product covers, including mobile apps that work where there is no signal.
What transfers
If you were to attempt this
Counting solutions built by the business rather than by IT is a better maturity measure than hours saved, and harder to game.
Where it usually gets harder than expected: An estate of 275 solutions needs ownership, or it becomes 275 things nobody can safely change. Governance is what separates this from an expensive mess three years later.
How we would take it on
Our approach to Modern Work & Automation work
1
Check what you already own
Most organizations are licensed for more than they have deployed. This step frequently reduces the engagement we were about to be paid for.
2
Assess permissions before AI
Copilot reaches whatever the user can reach. A decade of casual oversharing becomes visible on day one, and it is entirely avoidable if you look first.
3
Pick scenarios with the business
The functions that will use it know where their week goes. Scenario selection done inside IT produces pilots that impress nobody.
4
Measure in tiers
Usage, then time and quality, then business KPIs. Anyone promising the third before the first exists is guessing.
Recognise the problem?
If any of the above describes your organization, tell us where it hurts most. We will tell you what the same platforms could realistically do in your environment, what we would measure, and whether we think it is worth doing at all.
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